Now Create A New Look for Gmail
A video from Google’s YouTube channel (update: the video is now private, but there’s a mirror here) introduces a new Gmail interface. It’s based on the Preview theme that’s already available in Gmail, but there are many other changes: an action bar that uses icons instead of text labels, a completely new interface for conversations, profile pictures next to contacts, a flexible layout that adapts to any window size, display density options like in Google Docs, resizable chat/labels sections, new high-definition themes and an updated search box that includes advanced options.
I don’t see the new interface yet, but it will probably be available soon. It’s interesting that there’s an arrow next to “Mail” and the links to Google Contacts and Google Tasks are missing. Maybe you’ll be able to use the arrow to switch to other Google services.
{ Thanks, Carlos. }
Google Chrome 15 Released
Chrome 15 brings a few changes and some new features. Here are some of them:
1. A redesigned new tab page inspired by mobile interfaces. There are two “homescreens” for apps and most visited pages, but you can create a new “homescreen” by dragging apps and pages to the bottom bar and selecting the new “homescreen”. You can also remove pages and apps by dragging them to the bottom bar and then to trash area (“remove from Chrome”). Any bookmark can now become app: just drag it to the new tab page. This also works for the most visited pages.
2. The extension manager is now a section of the options page and has a new interface. You can now use the inline search box to find extensions. The old interface is displayed if you type chrome://extensions in the address bar, while the new address is:chrome://settings/extensions.
3. Chrome’s menu has changed: the bookmarks menu is easier to find and there’s a new item for Chrome sync.
4. If you don’t like Chrome’s print preview page, use a shortcut to open the native print dialog: Ctrl+Shift+P (Cmd-Shift-P for Mac).
5. You can now print headers and footers.
Can you find other new features?
Google+ now available for Google Apps domains
Google Apps administrators can manually turn on Google+ for their organization. Once Google+ is turned on, users will need to sign up at google.com/+ to get started. For customers who use Google Apps for Business or the free version of Google Apps and who have chosen to automatically enable new services, Google+ will automatically become available to all of your users over the next several days.
Note: Google+ requires Picasa Web Albums for photo sharing and Google Talk for chat, so if these services are not enabled then Google+ will not automatically become available, even if your domain has chosen to automatically enable new services. The option to automatically enable new services is controlled in the Domain settings tab of the administrator control panel.
Education editions only: Google+ is available only for higher education institutions that are existing Google Apps for Education customers. If you don’t see the Google+ service in your control panel (as described above), you’ll need to apply for the service to have it added to your control panel.
Blogger to Integrate With Google+
When you edit your Blogger profile, Blogger shows a message at the top of the page that says: “Connect Blogger to Google+: Use your Google profile and get access to upcoming Google+ features on Blogger”. Unfortunately, the links seem to be broken, but both URLs reference profile switching.
It’s obvious that Blogger profiles will be discontinued and replaced by Google Profiles, but it’s not clear how Blogger will integrate with Google+. Maybe Blogger posts will automatically trigger Google+ posts and Blogger/Google+ comments will be synchronized. Friend Connect will be discontinued and Google+ could replace it. Friend Connect’s goal was to “help site owners easily provide social features for their visitors. Users gain the ability to sign in to, make friends on, and interact with your site, making it more social and more dynamic”. It wasn’t successful, but Google+ has a better chance to make Blogger more social.
Update: Blogger’s blog informs that this option is available if you use Blogger in Draftand it will be released in the regular Blogger interface in the coming weeks. For now, the only changes are that the Blogger profile redirects to the Google profile, the author’s name is now obtained from Google Profiles and Google’s snippets for the blog posts include information about authors: name, thumbnail and link to the profile. “If you blog under a pseudonym and do not want your blog to be associated with your real name, you should not migrate from a Blogger profile to a Google+ profile,” suggests Google. If you change your mind after switching to the Google+ profile, you can revert to the Blogger profile.
{ Thanks, Herin. }
YouTube: Support for the Watch Later List
YouTube’s Watch Later list is the perfect way to keep track of interesting videos you come across but don’t have time to watch at the moment. Since rolling out that feature on the YouTube website and the embedded players, developers have been asking for ways to interact with the Watch Later list via the YouTube Data API. We’re happy to announce that this is now possible.
As explained in our documentation, the YouTube Data API treats the Watch Later list like a playlist, and the normal playlist operations (additions, retrievals, modifications) can all be performed on the Watch Later list. While every YouTube user has their own Watch Later list, it’s important to keep in mind that by default it’s a private playlist, so it will not normally be accessible unless you’re making an authenticated request as the list’s owner.
If you have any questions about using the Data API to work with the Watch Later list, please let us know in our developer forum.
Cheers,
—Jeff Posnick, YouTube API Team
New Transliteration Layer in Google Maps
Google Maps has a new layer that “switches between the labels in the local language and transliterated text”. It’s enabled by default, but you can disable it by mousing over the layer box and unchecking “English”. Until now, both versions were displayed and the map looked cluttered.
New Google Chrome Remote Desktop
Chrome Remote Desktop is a new Chrome extension that lets you remotely control a computer from your browser. It’s the first software that uses a technology code-named “chromoting” and it’s especially useful if you have a Chromebook.
The goal of this beta release is to demonstrate the core Chrome Remoting technology and get feedback from users. This version enables users to share with or get access to another computer by providing a one-time authentication code. Access is given only to the specific person the user identifies for one time only, and the sharing session is fully secured.
One potential use of this version is the remote IT helpdesk case. The helpdesk can use the Chrome Remote Desktop BETA to help another user, while conversely a user can receive help by setting up a sharing session without leaving their desk. Additional use cases such as being able to access your own computer remotely are coming soon.
Chrome Remote Desktop BETA is fully cross-platform, so you can connect any two computers that have a Chrome browser, including Windows, Linux, Mac and Chromebooks.
I’ve installed the extension on a Dell laptop that runs Windows 7 and on a Samsung Chromebook. The extension has more than 17 MB, so you have to wait a little bit until it’s downloaded and installed. After installing the extension on my Dell laptop, I clicked the new icon from the new tab page and Chrome Remote Desktop asked me to “grant extended access permissions” to my computer.
Chrome Remote Desktop is a special extension because it can be used to control your computer. It’s interesting that the extension uses Google Talk’s technology to send messages.
When you decide to share your computer, Remote Desktop generates a code you need to enter on a second computer.
Here’s what happens after installing the extension on my Chromebook:
The performance is pretty good, but it depends on your Internet connection and the computers you’re using. The extension is especially useful for businesses and it will make Chromebooks even more attractive for companies.
{ Thanks, Venkat. }
Introducing Google Account support and YouTube API v2.1
Authenticated access to YouTube APIs lets your app offer many features that are unavailable to logged-out users. By authenticating user actions, your app can allow users to manage subscriptions, create playlists, and upload videos. Until recently, users could only perform any of these operations if they had YouTube accounts. (A YouTube account provides a user with a YouTube channel.)
We are pleased to announce that we have also started to give Google Account holders who don’t already have YouTube channels access to certain YouTube features on YouTube.com and in the YouTube API. We call these unlinked Google Accounts since they haven’t already been linked to a YouTube channel. For example, a user with a Gmail account or an Android device is certain to have a Google Account but may not have already linked that account to a YouTube channel.
What this means for your application is that with a few relatively simple changes, you should be able to allow authenticated access for users who have unlinked Google Accounts. Thus, those users will be able to log in to YouTube without having to create a YouTube username.
In a moment, we’ll dive into the details of how to use the API with unlinked Google Accounts and also offer a few user experience recommendations for your YouTube API application. First, though, a quick note about the new minor YouTube API revision that we’re introducing.
Say “Hello!” to YouTube API v2.1
When designing this feature, we decided to take a conservative approach toward backward compatibility. The set of write operations supported for Google Accounts is currently a subset of API operations available to YouTube account holders. Rather than expose existing applications to accounts with potentially restricted functionality, we’re explicitly requiring that an application prepared to handle unlinked Google Accounts tells us so by using the API version 2.1, a new, minor version of the API. Our documentation explains that you can specify an API version by appending v=2.1 to the API request URI or by using the GData-Version: 2.1 request header.
HTTP response codes for authenticated operations
API v2.0 supports all authenticated operations for users with YouTube accounts, which could also be called linked Google Accounts, but doesn’t support any authenticated operations for unlinked Google Accounts. If the authentication token for a v2.0 API request identifies an unlinked Google Account, the API will return a 401 NoLinkedYouTubeAccount error.
In API v2.1, however, a number of operations that require authentication are supported for users with unlinked Google Accounts, and the API will return a 200 response code for those operations. For operations that aren’t supported for unlinked Google Accounts in v2.1, the API will return an HTTP 403 Forbidden error with a youtube_signup_required error code.
The table below shows how API v2.1 changes response codes when different types of users try to execute operations that require authentication:
| API v2 | API v2.1 | |
| YouTube Account | 200 OK | 200 OK |
| Unlinked Google Account | 401 NoLinkedYouTubeAccount | 200 OK or 403 Forbidden youtube_signup_required |
Handling the youtube_signup_required error
We do not recommend that you try to modify your application to provide a different experience for users with YouTube accounts than for unlinked Google Accounts. That approach would require you to constantly update your application as YouTube expands the list of features that we support for unlinked Google Accounts.
Instead, we recommend that you prepare your application to gracefully handle the youtube_signup_required error, preferably by presenting an option for the user to link to https://www.youtube.com/create_channel. If you are building a mobile application, you can bypass a redirect by using https://m.youtube.com/create_channel instead. The API documentation lists the operations that are and are not currently supported for unlinked Google Account holders.
The XML below shows a sample youtube_signup_required error:
<errors>
<error>
<domain>yt:service</domain>
<code>youtube_signup_required</code>
</error>
</errors>
User profiles for unlinked Google Account holders
A user profile entry for a user with an unlinked Google Account differs from a user profile entry for a user with a YouTube account in two ways:
- § An entry for an unlinked Google Account holder contains a
<yt:incomplete>tag. (This tag is not present if the user already has a YouTube channel.) It is useful if you chose to disregard our advice about theyoutube_signup_requirederror and modify your application to provide a different user experience for users with unlinked Google Accounts. - § An entry for an unlinked Google Account holder contains only a few tags as those users can not customize their profile data without first creating a YouTube channel. The <entry> tag definition lists the different tags that may appear in a profile entry depending on whether the user has a YouTube account or an unlinked Google Account.
Displaying an email address for unlinked Google Account holders
In addition to handling the youtube_signup_required error, your application should also be prepared to display an email address for users with unlinked Google Accounts.
In Closing
If you have reached this point in the blog post, thanks for being a dedicated reader. We recognize that unlinked Google Accounts do introduce a certain level of complexity, but, at the same time, they can also open your application to a much larger audience of users who use Google services but haven’t created YouTube channels yet.
We also want to note that v2.1 does not deprecate v2.0 since it is a minor revision. Going forward, new features unrelated to unlinked Google Accounts will be added to both v2.0 and v2.1 but not to the (deprecated) v1.0 of the API.
Version 2.1 of the API is now available for testing on stage.gdata.youtube.com, and will be released to production in mid-October.
Cheers,
—Jarek Wilkiewicz, YouTube API Team
Exclusive Invite: OTN Virtual Developer Day- Database Free Event
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Magento October 2011 Events Update
In the world of eCommerce every hour of every day means the possibility of revenue.
Learn how Magento can help your online business succeed.
Attend an eCommerce Forum sponsored by Magento and Magento Solution Partners to learn how Magento Enterprise can help you turn more browsers to buyers.
At these forums, eCommerce decision-makers will acquire a general understanding of who Magento is, what we do to empower the eCommerce ecosystem and how we can help you build a profitable online business.
Event Highlights
- Overview and demonstration of the Magento Enterprise eCommerce solution
- Examples of eCommerce success using Magento Enterprise
- Networking – talk to Magento personnel, a Magento Solution Partner and other companies with the same questions and ambitions as you
These events are free of charge but for planning purposes, registration is required.
Calendar of Events
| Date | Location | Check-in | Event | Partner | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 06 | SEATTLE Seattle Marriott Waterfront 2100 Alaskan Way |
11:30AM | 12:00PM – 3:00PM SIT DOWN LUNCH |
BINARY ANVIL | Register |
| Oct 10 | PARIS Hôtel Novotel Vaugirard 257 rue de Vaugirard 75015 PARIS |
9:00AM | 10:00AM – 2:00PM COFFEE & LUNCH |
Register | |
| Oct 17 | NANTES Hotel Mercure Nantes Central 4 Rue du Couedic 44000 – NANTES, FRANCE |
9:00AM | 10:00AM – 2:00PM COFFEE & LUNCH |
Register | |
| Oct 18 | CHICAGO Market Bar Chicago 1113 West Randolph Chicago, IL 60607 |
6:00PM | 6:30PM – 9:00PM Drinks and food |
GORILLA | Register |
| Oct 24 | BORDEAUX Hotel Mercure Bordeaux Centre 5 rue Robert Lateulade 33000 BORDEAUX, FRANCE |
9:00AM | 10:00AM – 2:00PM COFFEE & LUNCH |
Register | |
| Oct 26 | BLOOMINGTON, MN 2626 East 82nd Street Suite 320 |
8:00AM | 8:30AM – 11:30AM Continental Breakfast |
AUGUST ASH | Register |
| Oct 27 | CINCINNATI, OH Dave and Busters, 11775 Commons Drive Springdale, OH |
5:00PM | 5:30PM – 7:30PM Drinks and Appetizers |
CROWN PARTNERS | Register |
| Nov 3 | SAN FRANCISCO 499 Carolina Street Potrero Hill neighborhood |
12:00PM | 12:30PM – 3:00PM Lunch (Vegetarian option available) |
INFIELD DESIGN | Register |
Past Events
| Date | Location | Check-in | Event | Partner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 14 | BOSTON 177 Huntington Avenue 13th Floor |
6:00PM | 6:30PM – 8:00PM APPETIZERS/DRINKS |
ONE PICA |
| Sep 15 | TORONTO, ONTARIO THE BALLROOM 145 JOHN ST |
6:00PM | 6:30PM – 9:00PM APPETIZERS/DRINKS |
DEMAC MEDIA |
| Sep 29 | CHANDLER, AZ 55 North Arizona |
9:00AM | 9:30AM – 11:00AM BREAKFAST |
LEVEMENTUM |
| Oct 04 | SALT LAKE CITY Thanksgiving Point 3003 N. Thanksgiving Way, Utah Room Lehi, UT 84043 |
8:30AM | 9:00AM – 12:00PM BREAKFAST |
5DK |
| Oct 04 | MIAMI Axis Building 79 SW 12 St Miami FL, 33130 |
1:30PM | 2:00PM – 5:00PM APPETIZERS/DRINKS |
DIGITAL EVOLUTION GROUP |
- Don’t see a city near you?
Let us know where you want us to come next.
Send an email to: events@magento.com with “eCommerce Forum” in the subject line
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